swine flu at my Argentinean university :-(

A lecturer and a student of my Argentinean university ‘IES en Lenguas Vivas’ were infected by the new swine inluenza virus A H1/N1. Therefore it is closed until June 21. All the best for their recovery!

Hopefully all this trouble is gone when I get there in August!

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Swine flu brings life in Argentina to a standstill

Translated by Ingo (myself) from Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, July 4, 2009

Buenos Aires (dpa/v). The swine influenza brought the public life in Argentina extensively to a standstill. Due to the fast spread of the virus infection more and more public facilities have been closed. Most of the schools have already been closed nationwide and universities have sent their students home as well. Many cities and communities ordered on their own initiative to close also shops, restaurants, cafés, sport centers, and cafés with a dance floor.

Even the Department of Justice closed.

The atmosphere in the capital of Buenos Aires with its millions of citizens, that used to be loud and hectically, was just like on holidays this Friday. But just only a few people used a surgical mask. In the media there were almost no other topics than this influenza.

In the mean time, the government estimates the number of the cases of swine influenza in its own country at 100,000. That is what the Health Minister Juan Luis Manzur reported on Friday. There is a registered death toll of at least 44, he said. Up to now Argentina has reported 1587 lab confirmed infections and 26 deaths of H1N1 flu to World Health Organisation (WHO).

According to Manzur, the peak of illness has not been reached yet. “The curve still points upwards,” he said. Now it was especially a question of preventing a further spread that the healthcare system would not collapse under the rush of infected people.

According to the results of the Robert-Koch-Institut in Berlin, until Friday there were only 505 infected people reported in Germany. The experts reckon with an increase of infections, especially in this upcoming autumn.